Imagine earning an average of 106% over each of the last 20 years. I’m not talking about one lucky year of outsized returns like those experienced by many hedge funds and money managers. These are breathtaking returns, no matter what the benchmark.

Nothing Illegal Or Unethical
One of the first things we learn as investors is that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

The truth is that there is nothing illicit or wrong about these huge profits, and they are in fact, 100% legitimate. The aforemetioned 106% represents the returns of the venture capital investments of the large and respected Yale University Endowment’s 20-year asset class.

The most exciting thing is that it is possible to build a similar portfolio as an individual investor.

The Yale University Endowment Fund is the second largest university endowment in the United States with $27.2 billion under management.

Managed byChief Investment Officer David F. Swensen, the fund is built from thousands of smaller funds with a wide variety of purposes and restrictions.

Over the past 20 years, Yale’s investments overall have produced an average annual return of $12.1% — exceeding the broad market returns for domestic stocks (7.5% annually) and domestic bonds (5.2% annually).

The university structures its investments via a combination of informed market judgment and academic financial theory.

Yale has been steadily moving away from domestic marketable securities, like stocks and bonds, to non-traditional asset classes. Thirty years ago, 80% of the endowment was invested in U.S. stocks, bonds, and cash. Today, these asset classes only account for only 11.5% of the total portfolio. Private equity, absolute return strategies, real estate, natural resources, and leveraged buyouts make up 88.5% of the Yale Endowment.

The reason for this radical change is the fact that today’s portfolio is designed to produce significantly higher returns and lower volatility than in the 1980s. Non-traditional asset classes are less efficiently priced than domestic stocks and bonds, which means there are greater opportunities to exploit inefficiencies via active management. In addition, the inherent long-term nature of non-traditional assets such as oil & gas, venture capital, real estate, and leverage buyouts, matches more favorably with Yale’s long-term perspective.

Here’s a closer look at the Yale Endowment’s primary asset classes.

Private Equity
This is where Yale’s earned the best returns. Private equity is ownership in companies. That dramatic 93% in annual returns for the past 20 years all came from Yale’s private equity investments. Early Investments in Google (now Alphabet) (Nasdaq: GOOG) and LinkedIn (Nasdaq: LNKD) helped create these massive returns. Private equity currently makes up about 16% of Yale’s holdings.

Absolute Return
An absolute return strategy is one that seeks to be profitable regardless of the underlying markets or benchmark. Anthony McDonald explained absolute return strategies to Morningstar this way,

“The strategy aims to make a positive absolute return for investors, so mainly to make money. The key point being that they should be making money regardless of the underlying market condition in the asset class, be it equities, be it bonds, that they primarily are investing in. So where they differ from your normal long-only equity or bond fund that most retail investors and advisors still use at the core of their portfolio is that they should be less dependent upon the direction of the underlying markets.”

Specific absolute return strategies include long-short equities, relative value, event-driven, global macro, and funds of funds hedge funds.

By not being tied to any benchmark or the bullish performance of equities, absolute return strategies seek to produce consistently positive returns over the investment time horizon.

Absolute return is Yale’s largest strategy, accounting for 25% of fund allocation in 2017.

Real Assets
Real assets made up 11% of the Yale Endowment allocation map in 2017. Yale helped pioneer real estate investing as a major part of a diversified investment portfolio. Real estate fits the long term and illiquid nature of the university’s investment goals.

Risks To Consider: Although individual investors can seek to replicate the investments of the Yale Endowment, don’t forget that Yale has access to massive resources and investment brain power simply not accessible to most of us. These ideas should be taken as broad strokes as to how to build a diversified portfolio rather than particular buy/sell suggestions.

Action To Take: Take to heart Yale’s long-term perspective and massive diversification whenever building an investment portfolio. Investors who are seeking to build a similar portfolio can start by looking at the following ETFs:

— Private equity — PowerShares Global Listed Private Equity Portfolio ETF (NYSE: PSP)

— Absolute Return — First Trust Alternative Absolute Return Strategy ETF (NYSE: FAAR)

— Real Assets– iShares Cohen & Steers Realty Majors (NYSE: ICF) & Guggenheim Timber ETF (NYSE: CUT)

— David Goodboy

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Source: Street Authority